Paulinho Signs...Finally!

Earlier today, Paulinho became Tottenham's record signing and first signing of the summer, joining from Corinthians for a fee of £17 million, surpassing our previous record of £16.5 million paid for Luka Modric.

The 24 year old Brazilian midfielder completed a medical yesterday and met up with Daniel Levy and Andre Villas-Boas ahead of the deal's completion. 'I am very happy and excited to have joined Spurs. It's a huge pleasure for my career to be at a club as big as Tottenham,' Paulinho said.

The official club statement was: 'We are delighted to announce that we have reached agreement for the transfer of Paulinho from Corinthians after the Brazil international successfully completed his medical.

The box-to-box midfielder has enjoyed great success since joining Corinthians from Brazilian Serie B side Clube Atlético Bragantino in 2010. He has made a total of 86 league appearances, scoring 20 goals while helping the Sao Paulo-based club to the Brazilian Serie A league championship in 2011 as well as the Copa Libertadores and FIFA Club World Cup a year later.

His fine performances at club level have also seen him twice named in the Serie A Team of the Year in 2011 and 2012. The 24-year-old, capped by Brazil 17 times, helped his country to FIFA Confederations Cup success last Sunday with victory against world champions Spain and also scored the equaliser against England in the 2-2 draw at the Maracana last month.' I genuinely believe that it is a great signing for a number of reasons, the main one being that Paulinho offers more than just defensive cover in the midfield area; he is brilliant on the ball and his strong, driving runs all over the pitch will offer the team a new dimension.

The addition will also take a lot of pressure off Sandro and Dembele's shoulders in the middle of the park, and as well as that, many have been saying that he will help AVB transform the team into the 4-3-3 outfit that he has always craved but not had the tools to create at Spurs. What a signing - COYS!

ghulamville - no mate, a brilliant signing to say the least, about an hour ago I thought I'd just go on this site since I had nothing better to do and I saw that there's no article regarding his signing, so I might as well have done one.

This is a great start - if we could go and get two drop drawer strikers and a left back we have the potential to challenge for the title. Oh and I'm super happy cos my mrs just had a little boy! Eden Phoenix Sol (don't shoot me for the sol bit, I wanted a summer name!)

A great start and intent was needed by bale. As others have said, a great midfield, but my only concern is if dembele fitness is same as last year. Holtby as back up for sandro, so sell Parker and Livermore and I guess at the moment siggy or Carroll would be back up for dembele, so sell Hudd. Clearly a striker is the priority, but if we could also get an eriksen for midfield, would then be perfect. However, to do it so early is fantastic and very un spurs. Bale stays.

Yes, welcome Paulinho. Apparently you almost quit football a few years back...thankfully you stayed with it. Here is talk of another young man who deserves a break......http://www.cartilagefreecaptain.com/2013/7/6/4499022/jonathan-obika-tottenham-hotspur-transfer-rumours

Windle...last year we signed Sigg earlier than this, and then Verts between 8 and 12 July. And then it all went quiet. All I am hoping is that AVB keeps the pressure on Levy. We need that striker now not end of August. It is a key position to get in and get the player used to tactics etc.

Jacobs - agree, but thankfully now we don't need wholesale changes, but clearly want at least a striker bedding in ASAP. If fit, I would be happy with villa, a scorer, big reputation, good movement and quality. Would guess it will be the outs we will see next - Parker, Hudd, rumoured adebajor.

A number of reports this morning saying that if Benteke doesn't sign a new contract with Villa, DL will wait until the end of August to try and get him for 20m. Has the ring of truth as an alternative to another early signing, and out of DL hands (unless paying WELL over the odds).
Plus Mark Hughes wanting DeFoe......?

Ken Dagnall, to be honest, if our new dof is meant to be so good, you would have thought he could find a good enough striker for £20m (the amount we supposedly want to spend on Benteke) before the end of the transfer window. On the flip side, if we have earmarked Benteke as the main man, then maybe we will have to wait if we can't afford him currently.

Ken Dagnall, I can't believe we are neck and neck with Southampton. You would have thought that on a footballing level, with no disrespect to the Saints, we would be head and shoulders above them in pecking order.

Why am I not hearing more about signing a creative midfielder? People refer to Paulinho as the missing link, and how all we need now is a striker or two etc. etc. .. Don't people realise that as good as Paulinho is (and Dembele, Sandro, Holtby etc.) we need a midfield 'brain' to complete the jigsaw of what can be the deadliest midfield in the PL. Despite what Bale did last season, much of our midfield play was muddled and unbalanced. Compare that with the season before when the Modric/Parker/VDV axis was producing the slickest midfield play in the Premiership (and that was Sir Alex's opinion, not just mine and many others) until Uncle Harry's mind drifted towards the England job that never was and we lost a nailed on 3rd position, or better. That axis ..often just Modric/Parker freeing up the wing play of Bale and Lennon, and taking pressure of our defense ..was often let down by our finishers, and like the season before that (2010/11) we created countless chances which our forwards squandered. We created far less for the forwards in the season gone, but the conversion rate was still absurdly low with Bale making and taking most of the chances. The heartbeat of Spurs has always been a balanced midfield (think playmakers like Modders, Hoddle, Gazza, Ardiles and so on) and last season proved how much we needed someone pulling the strings. Parker is a fine player with another good season of cover at least, in him, but he looked lost without a top playmaker alongside him, and having to step up for Sandro all season. Him and Dembele dovetailing just did not work. Bale carried us and imagine how much more influential he can be with another player like Modric beside him. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for powerful players defending strongly and breaking forward to attack (and now we have 3 top player like that in P, S, and D), plus we have a very strong defense, with Kaboul coming back also. But a top playmaker is the key to all our unfulfilled dreams (with a forward who can take chances, coming a close and necessary second)! With forwards, however, we have a dozen to negotiate over and obtain before the window closes. BUT WHERE IS OUR PLAYMAKER, AND WHEN IS HE COMING???

Out of the 3 quality players we need Paulinho is the first to arrive, and arrive early. I don't get the 'levy will wait' if that is true why the feck has he told anyone, talk about take away the element of surprise. But we do need to get in our second out of three before pre-season finishes, we play the scum before the window realistically shuts, any deadline day signings won't be available. Great start, now going and get a f ing striker please.

C Boyd Spurs may have been built around creative midfielders but AVB hasn't. He likes a solid team with creativity coming from the width and three forwards. Had Harry had Berbatov and Keane upfront we would have finished third, maybe even pushed the manc's, and that's what we still need, two prolific strikers.

Agree with C Boyd Waters 100%. We still lack a midfielder with the passing game who can unlock the 2 deep banks of four that Spurs faced and mostly failed to break down last season, most often relying on long range Bale efforts to get the points. Sando, Paulinho and Dembele are not that player. Moutinho, Silva, Pjanic etc may be out of our price range, but surely between AVB and Baldini they can see the obvious need for such a player? I see such a player as more important than a striker considering how many points we dropped to bottom/mid table teams last year because of the inability of Parker and co to pass around/behind them. Get Bale and Lennon in behind to the bi-line more often and even Ade will prosper. Paulinho is an excellent signing, but a creator he is not.

his stats are very impressive and he is far from a DMFer as was alleged when we were first interested. At Corinthians he has scored 55 from 86 starts and for Brazil he has scored 8 from 17 starts, so he is better than a goal every other game, this is better than our "strikers", and is very akin to the player he allegedly wants to emulate Frank Lampard. If he approaches these figure i.e. better than 15 goals/season in the PL he would be terrific for us.

Now it's time to get our front players sorted out. I found this mornings report that Levy intends to play the waiting game to get Benteke for £20M, even if it means going to the end of the window, and after the opening games, somewhat disappointing. I hope it isn't true, as we have suffered before due to the lateness of new signings. There are two problems with this approach 1) We may miss out on the player anyway, and 2) The firm aim should be to get all new signings in before the end of pre-season, for training, familiarization, and team building, and to avoid dropping points in early fixtures as we did last season. Benteke is allegedly on £20K/Wk at Villa, surely if we make it known to his connections that we could at least double that, and can offer him European football, and emphasise the presence of his Belgium compatriots Vertonghen, and Dembele together with the quality of the rest of the squad, we can get inside his head and hopefully make him agitate for a move to speed it up. I'm sure that Lambert could be further persuaded by a substantial cash offer, plus one of our discards as a make weight.

THFChris - The wait of Benteke story appear to be depend on whether Villa can get him to sign a new contract. If they can't then they have until 31 Aug to sell him on at a BIG profit (they bought at 7m?). So appears to be out of DL's hands, and relies on: new contract; competition for the player; and our budget (20m cap?). Of course, we could sign someone else, or the story could be nonsense......

Frank - Agree about the dissapointing "reports" regarding Benteke and the perils of leaving it very late. On the other hand perhaps Levy is letting the media and his rep for hard nosed bargaining work in his favour. Villa may need to sell Benteke just as much if not more than Spurs need to buy him. Benteke seems eager to leave, so will Villa want to lose him at the last minute and not have time to replace him? Im optimistically hoping that Levy is calling Villa's bluff, and Benteke will join Paulinho and a creative midfielder as our signings of the summer.

I hear Levy has made it an order that if anyone wants Paulinho's name on their shirt, they have to have his full name (Jose Paulo Bezerra Maciel Junior). Levy is hoping to fund the transfer with shirt sales by the end of next week.

Completely agree with C Boyd Waters, in fact we might have been better off buying Moussa Sissoko for £2m last season instead of Paulinho, saving £15m towards a much needed creative player. A plus point is that Paulinho brings goal potential, though I think Franks numbers are a bit generous..